The present invention relates to a tarpaulin made of fabric, plastic-coated woven fabric or fleece, or of unreinforced or reinforced plastic foil with edge reinforcing strips.
Tarpaulins are used as covers for protecting all types of materials against the influences of weather, cold, heat and dust.
They are used, as fabricated, merely for covering purposes. They can also be made in a shaped form, i.e. after being cut to a pattern, provided with an edge reinforcement, eyes and other holding devices, for use as covers on trucks, protective covers on construction jobs, on railroads and for mail traffic, as well as for many other purposes. Tarpaulins which are provided with eyes, supporting strips or other fastening means have become very important in the construction industry where they serve, inter alia, as a protection against the weather, particularly during rainy and cold days.
In this connection it is known to arrange the eyes at the edge of the tarpaulin at appropriate intervals and to reinforce the edges of the eyes with metal or plastic.
In order to improve the resistance to tearing of the material around the eyes, it is known to reinforce the edge portions of the tarpaulin by folding these portions over once or several times and placing the eyes in the thus reinforced edge portion.
It is also known to form the edge reinforcements by means of prefabricated strips of plastic, to fasten them to the edge of the tarpaulin by weld seams and to then perforate the thus reinforced tarpaulin edge.
All the above-mentioned ways of applying the eyes have, of course, the drawback, either that the eyes must be attached during fabrication in the appropriate spacing required by the particular order, or the eyes are attached at uniform distances without consideration of special individual requirements, sometimes at points where they are not required at all. This creates the further drawback that the tarpaulin is consequently perforated at points where it would not seem to be desired.